Smartphone design stalled in 2024

I’m sorry I’m that guy. Innovation in smartphones has stalled in favor of the adoption of artificial intelligence. Samsung, Google and Apple made AI the main marketing focus of every flagship phone in 2024. It wasn’t about lean hardware or the smartphone’s ability to serve as a solid daily computing device. This was about preparing users for the AI ​​attack that will inevitably force them to update their phones to avoid being isolated.

This year was marred by nifty extra features and the rationalization that you’ll need a new smartphone that supports what’s to come if you want to be on the same page as everyone else. Design-wise, that produced a batch of phones that didn’t move the needle. The Galaxy S24 Ultra looks similar to the Galaxy S23 Ultra but with squarer edges. Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro doesn’t look all that different from the iPhone 15 Pro; You can’t even tell them from the back. As for the Google Pixel 9 Pro, it has a revamped camera bar on the back. Still, it now looks like the iPhone from the front, and everything else in the Pixel line prioritizes the Gemini over everything else.

I like the idea of ​​the AI ​​registering properly, whether it’s trying to open an app to get work done or disappear into fatal scrolling. But what will be the cost of prioritizing AI-enhanced performance over everything else? Can smartphones remain thin if power consumption is the priority? Won’t they have to make allowances for larger batteries and additional components as AI becomes the primary energy consumer? These are all questions floating around as we approach the year 2025.

The meteoric rise of AI

Samsung started 2024 from the beginning with Galaxy AI. It already did some of what Google’s Gemini intended to do, except this time it also had a unique new feature to debut: Circle to Search, which became the best thing to happen to Android this year, even before Android 15 came in. in development. advance. Samsung and Google combined forces for the Galaxy S24 launch event to keep the message honed, stating that Android would become a vessel for everything that was happening with AI behind the scenes.

Google followed, peppering the year with prolific Pixel Drops that enabled features like Circle to Search, Call Screen, and most recently, Gemini extensions. By the time of its developer conference in the spring, it was clear that the trajectory of the Android platform was largely focused on AI. Android was no longer the main event; instead, it focused on explaining how Gemini would improve the user experience. The most significant indicator of this for me was when I launched Gemini beta and set it as my phone’s default assistant. It broke some of my Google Assistant-enabled hardware, like the Roav Bolt, which I use to control my phone hands-free while driving. Fortunately, everything Google has done in the background since then has fixed it, although I did have to wait half a year for Gemini to fully roll out. It was a heartbreaking reminder of what happens when the company behind your smartphone platform suddenly takes a left turn into something new.

Some of us expected Apple to be the one to hold out on AI. Typically, Apple will take what Google does and “deny” it, then explain that it’s not possible because it would ruin the integrity of their product. But Cupertino surprised us with Apple Intelligence at WWDC, announcing that it was adding AI to its platforms and doing it the most Apple way: completely changing what everyone else is doing and presenting it as something new, one-of-a-kind. technology, although it still requires some help from ChatGPT to address more sophisticated commands. At least the company remains characteristic in this regard. As a result of the name “Apple Intelligence,” the style guide requires me to explain it from time to time when I refer to it, which helps me avoid overusing “AI.” which is not artificial intelligence; It’s Apple’s intelligence.

The cost of imaging

Now, it’s been months since all the new smartphones have debuted for the latest generation. We’re stuck with a slew of premium devices from Samsung, Google and Apple, all focused on selling us this new form of predictive computing. Each platform also has an image rendering app for producing images: Image Playground on iOS and Pixel Studio on Pixel devices. Thank you, I guessbut this is not what people were thinking about when they asked for help with photographs. Instead, I was hoping to add better lenses to the back of these devices since they already cost more than a mid-level digital camera. I was even willing to avoid thinness, knowing that the hardware had to get thicker if I wanted a bigger screen. Instead, I got a generative AI suite that makes my photos look like a Hallmark movie poster.

I’m not saying that cameras haven’t improved on Samsung, Google and Apple devices. That happens every year with every new smartphone; everything gets a little a bit better. But this time, all three seem entirely dependent on the AI ​​performing the magic to create the image. The Pixel’s entire camera system is based on the premise that AI can automatically do what you would have tried in an editing suite. Apple uses algorithms to ensure that every time you press the new camera control button on the iPhone 16, the photo is not deleted.

Here’s the problem with on-phone imaging in this age of AI. While AI and algorithms can help with battery management, such as reducing background processes and automatically optimizing settings based on what’s happening on the screen, rendering images within apps consumes those same resources, even when extracted from the cloud. A smartphone also needs a huge amount of memory to perform these tasks. That’s why we now see phones with 16GB of RAM as standard, including the Pixel 9 Pro. All that extra hardware to power AI will eventually increase manufacturing costs. We’re already seeing higher prices on iPhones and Android devices. It’s not just the economy.

That’s not to say that next year’s phones will be bulbous and cumbersome. They will likely continue to arrive in the same tempered glass chassis that they arrived with this year. They will all have large, bright screens with high refresh rates and saturated colors. They still fit in men’s pockets. They may even be slimmer than next year, at least according to rumors about the iPhone 17 and the Galaxy S25 Ultra. There is even talk that Samsung’s foldable devices could become larger to serve a different audience. What will be interesting to see is how each manufacturer manages the demands of balancing what the industry considers essential for competition and what consumers want in terms of utility. It doesn’t make AI worth it if it means very hot smartphones that die in the middle of the day.